Baby Star Ramen "Umashi"

Oyatsu Company

Taste:
4

Texture:
4

Novelty:
3.5

All
scores out of 5

Once
again a Japanese snack company completely confused me with its package.
When I looked at this bag of crunchy ramen snacks, I saw a sailors
suit, so I instantly assumed that I was in for a fishy treat. While
I'm not really sure what "Umashi" is, I can tell you that
it tastes kind of like onion. More specifically it tastes like a nice
fresh green onion. The flavour was so subtle, that even though I'm
not a huge fan of onion on its own, I really enjoyed these. Most often
when I enjoy the flavour of onion in my salty snacks, I like it cut
with something creamy like sour cream or yogurt, but these worked
fine without it. In fact I think a creamy addition would have ruined
the subtle taste and would have left it feeling too heavy.

Best of all the texture
of these little noodles is perfect for crunching. I'm a huge fan of
deep fried noodles when I go out for just about any asian meal, and
these gave me that satisfying crunch that I always look for. I'm not
sure if they were broken into little bits on purpose, or through shipping,
but the size worked really well for snacking. I could take a pinch
of these and get a perfect mouthful of crunchy goodness.

I'm not a big fan of onions,
I like them as a spice or cooked into some foods, but these little
crunchy treats gave me that onion freshness without the supre strong
taste. The package is a little misleading, but the flavour and texture
certainly aren't.